


Holding Out For a Hero

by chronicallyHaughty



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 13:06:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15316128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chronicallyHaughty/pseuds/chronicallyHaughty
Summary: “Hey, besides the whole attempted murder thing that was some pretty tasty pudding.” Magnus aims a punch at Morph which the elf narrowly ducks. Damn. He’s got some moves.“The secret is to be conservative with the egg whites in proportion to the yolks! The larger part yolk, the smoother the texture!” Morph yells as he flings an icicle at Magnus’ face. “At least twice as many yolks as whole eggs, or get that shit outta my face!”———In which semi-high fantasy has fallen by the wayside in favour of daydreams about people dressed in spandex saving and/or ruining the day, as their personal inclinations (and financial status, let's be real here) dictate.Oh, and certain loved ones are viciously stolen by certain villains, starting a chain reaction that saves, changes, and ends lives.





	Holding Out For a Hero

**Author's Note:**

> _Where have all the good men gone_   
>  _And where are all the gods?_
> 
>  
> 
> Oh gods what am I doing. Captain America: The Winter Soldier is my favourite Marvel flick so here, have a homage to the superhero genre I guess maybe???

It’s a dark and quiet night… However – rather unsurprisingly for people in Magnus Burnsides’ line of work – that quiet is abruptly and loudly interrupted.

“Twins!” Lucretia calls from her position at the other side of the darkened lobby. Her shout is immediately followed by a bright burst of flame.

Trusting his gut, Magnus spins on his heel, coming face to face with Blue Morpho Butterfly, Morph for short. He meets the elven man’s grin with one of his own, quipping, “And here I was worried she meant the _actually threatening_ twins.”

Morph shoots him two finger guns and a wink as the ground beneath Magnus promptly turns into quicksand, swallowing his feet before he can react.

“Shit!” Magnus’ laughter catches in his throat. He flails a bit before catching his balance. _Shit!_

“Words hurt, handsome!” With a jaunty wave, Morph flips over a nearby seating arrangement to engage Luce with his sister. _Shit, shit, shit!_

Cursing himself for rushing into things mindlessly, _again,_ Magnus sets about getting himself out of the goopy mess the previously very nice marble floor has become.

He’s up to his waist in the stuff before he comes to the realisation that it’s not actually sand. It’s caramel pudding, he realises when he accidentally gets a mouthful of the stuff. It’s pretty good, actually, which is a surprise. He may or may not take a few more accidental bites as he squelches his way to the nearest marble pillar.

He uses the pillar to pull himself up onto firm ground once more, and the scene that greets him is chaos. Furniture has been toppled and scorched, a pillar looks like it’s melting, and he spies a fancy painting lying on the ground with its fancy wooden frame broken.

It’s safe to say that things aren’t going super great so far.

Out of the corner of his eye, Magnus spots Morph skirting past where Luce is fighting to keep Phoenix grounded, and as the man turns the corner, Magnus focuses. Time slows down around him, going all syrupy in a familiar way. He takes a moment to admire Phoenix’ fireball suspended in the air, watching as one of Lucretia’s shields slowly shimmer into existence between her and it, before getting a move on.

Like this it’s easy enough to jog around the action and catch up with Morph before letting time catch up with him, placing himself back into the normal flow of the time stream. He leans onto a nearby pillar all casual-like as Morph starts moving normally, conversationally asking,

“Whoa there, what’s the rush, bud?”

“Gah!” Morph flails and nearly falls on his ass. Perhaps he shouldn’t find it so satisfying, but the guy _did_ just almost drown him in pudding, so. Which reminds him.

“Hey, besides the whole attempted murder thing that was some pretty tasty pudding.” Magnus aims a punch at Morph which the elf narrowly ducks. Damn. He’s got some moves.

“The secret is to be conservative with the egg whites in proportion to the yolks! The larger part yolk, the smoother the texture!” Morph yells as he flings an icicle at Magnus’ face. “At least twice as many yolks as whole eggs, or get that shit outta my face!”

“So just outta curiosity, how’d you turn the floor into pudding?”

“It was creme caramel, and no way am I telling you _shit,_ dingus! To you, it was simply magic,” Morph winks at him before leaping forward and around Magnus’ swing. Mid-leap, Magnus concentrates and lets the world slow down around him as he positions himself with a closed fist placed right where the elf’s midsection is about to be. He re-joins the regular time stream and lets Morph’s own momentum punch the air out of his lungs.

After a beat, Morph’s gasping doesn’t let up so Magnus leaves him on the floor with a friendly pat and a “stay put” and goes to help Lucretia take down the elven woman so that they can wrap this up. When he turns the corner he finds a sooty Swansong holding a profusely swearing Phoenix inside a bubble on the floor. She’s banging her fists on the bubble’s walls and gets even angrier when she sees Magnus. He waves at her, and she lets out a wordless shout, flames flickering around her.

“I take it Morph is down?” Lucretia, Swansong, asks with a smile.

“Yup, felled like a house of cards,” Magnus boasts, placing his fists on his hips and striking a heroic pose. A nearby pillar creaks suddenly and ominously, dust falling down from the ceiling. They both look up instinctively. Cracks have suddenly formed in the paint, but nothing too worrying, by Magnus’ estimate.

He looks back down to inform Swansong only to instead swear. She follows his gaze and swears even more. Her bubble is empty. The floor beneath it goopy and a pale brown. Magnus speeds back around the corner and finds his suspicions confirmed. The twins are gone.

—————

“We’re really sorry about this mess,” Magnus says to the Fantasy SHIELD agent with the fanciest shoulder patch, scratching the back of his head awkwardly. There’s pudding crusted in his hair. Her visor is down so he can’t quite tell how much trouble they’re in. Not that The Captain won’t make it excruciatingly clear just how badly they fucked up later, because wow, did they ever fuck this one up.

Sure, the Terror Twins didn’t get away with anything more than spare change, but the Sphyrnida Inc. lobby has looked better. Somewhere in the room behind him, a candelabra falls to the floor with a resounding clang. Magnus winces. The agent is still for another beat before bursting out laughing, flipping her visor up, and oh. Oh. She’s…

“Agent Waxmen,” the most beautiful woman in the world introduces herself with a warm, toothy grin, and for a second Magnus can do nothing but nod dumbly. She’s easily as tall as he is, and by the looks of it very nearly as buff.

“Punch. Hard Man. I mean, Punch Hard Man. Is me. But, uh, you probably already knew that. Since that’s kinda your job?” _Wow, nailed it. Great job, Maggie._ Thankfully Lucretia swoops in to rescue him.

“Ah, good evening, agent…?” she asks.

“Waxmen,” Agent Waxmen supplies, shooting Magnus an amused grin and nearly ending his life on the spot.

“Agent Waxmen, I’m sure any bureaucracy can be solved at a later date. Punch Hard Man and I are needed back at base for debrief.”

“Of course, Swansong. I’ll make sure someone keeps your team up to date with the information we have on the Terror Twins.”

“We appreciate that, thank you.”

As they get into the silver ball that will take them back up to the moon base, Lucretia gives him a _look._

 _“What?”_ he whines, strapping himself in.

“You are a complete disaster,” she laughs, then presses the ascend button.

—————

“No, I’m telling you, Lulu,” Taako protests, waving his arm about and wincing when this reminds him he got thrown into furniture last night. “That tabaxi guy? Shady as fuck. He’s into some dark, dark shit, trust ol’ Taako on that one.”

“Sure, babe,” Lup rolls her eyes at him affectionately as she turns the corner, coming up on their street. “He sacrifices virgins every full moon, def.”

“I feel like I’m not being taken seriously here,” Taako whines, but it is, as most things are with him, one hundred percent for show. The night is young and still retaining some of the heat of the day, a soft breeze making the leaves and flowers rustle in the trees. Lup laughs and shoves him, and he shoves her back.

They manage to reach their apartment building without dropping anything or having anyone call the cops on them. Once they reach the door, Taako hands his bag to Lup to hold while he unlocks the door. She scoots past him in the foyer, slipping out of her flats easy as that, while Taako has to spend a moment on unlacing his knee-high boots. Some sacrifices must be made for style.

Once done, he flips on the TV on his way following her into the kitchen area of their studio apartment.

“–quite the drama earlier today as Dryad, the plant menace, was finally apprehended. Fantasy SHIELD released a statement, saying that the woman in question had suffered a severe reaction to the substance known as the Mutant Growth Hormone. The agency representative further went on to thank the superhero known as Reaper for his assistance in the arrest–”

“Yeesh,” Taako mutters as he sidesteps his sister, clearing up some counter space for him to start chopping vegetables while Lup handles the meat. “Why not call him Edgelord? I mean, Reaper? _Really?_ Isn’t he supposed to be the Raven Queen’s son? Can’t deny his sense of style, though. Teensy tiny bit over the top with the Halloween-costume scythe in my opinion but he makes it work, somehow.”

Lup laughs, but then her face shifts into a pensive frown.

“That poor woman… I hope she’s okay.”

“Oh, yeah. Hope Fantasy SHIELD aren’t brainwashing her as we speak,” Taako replies offhandedly, focusing on de-seeding a bell pepper.

“They’re not the bad guys, Koko,” Lup says, sharply.

“Nope, that would be us, Lulu.” He doesn’t even really notice her irritation, until…

 _“Ugh.”_ The knife she’s wielding hits the meat a fair bit harder than is really necessary. Taako startles, interrupting the seamless flow of their cooking.

“Sorry,” he bites out. She doesn’t reply. They keep working in silence, and the summer lightness has left the room entirely. Only the news announcer’s droning can be heard.

They’ve always bickered, but it’s never been like this before, and it’s a continuous trend that frankly worries the shit out of Taako.

There used to be a time where they both lived for the thrill of the chase, when besides doing it to stay alive, supervillainy was just plain fun. A prolonged game of cat-and-mouse where no one got badly hurt but him and Lup always got the last laugh. Now, however…

If Lup no longer cares about their Terror Twins act? Taako’s going to lose her. He can feel her slipping away from him, more and more, every day that passes by, and it terrifies him because without Lup? He has nothing.

Dinner is a quiet affair. They both turn in early, having exchanged all of three words all evening. There’s no adrenalin in this battle, no last second, grandiose escape plan to execute. She’s simply drifting from his side, in a direction that isn’t the same as his. She’s his heart, the other half of his soul, and he’s losing her.

He has never been this scared before in his life.

**Author's Note:**

> Important note: Lup and Taako's supersuits look like what Eleni Foureira wore at Eurovision 2018, only less firey and midriffy and in blues and purples for Taako. Lucretia is wearing a pale white number that I haven't quite settled on anything concrete for but I'm not opposed to something Swan Lake-esque. Magnus is anyone's guess but I'm leaning toward something silly like modern Superboy's idea of a superhero outfit: jeans and a t-shirt.
> 
> This fic has a tumblr post [here](http://chronicallyhaughty.tumblr.com/post/175958310264/).
> 
> [Writing Tumblr](http://chronicallyhaughty.tumblr.com/) | [Main Tumblr](http://nattvingen.tumblr.com/) | [Pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/Feloss)


End file.
